next we are going to try a recipe by a fellow brewer from the Brew Nerds community on Google+ credit goes to Danny Ferguson
The Semper fIPA was targeted 7% ABV & 70 IBU / our version might vary based on what type of hops we can get, we will post our version later when we brew in about a month.
5.5 gal fermenter volume:
81% 2-row pale 6% German Munich 6% American carapils (dextrin) 4% American crystal 40 3% orange blossom honey (or enough to hit target gravity)
hops:
2.0 oz Amarillo leaf FWH – ( First Wort Hops ) 0.5 oz Chinook leaf 30 min 1.0 oz Columbus pellet 30 min 1.0 oz Sorachi Ace leaf 15 min 2.0 oz Citra leaf dry hop 5 days
You can now buy these from us – this is our way or raising cash to fund our operation/blog, since we can’t sell you beer.
HOPS ARE POISONOUS TO DOGS – if you add hops to the Mash, you can’t use the grain to make dog biscuits.
Tip – Most brewers will be too busy brewing the beer so collect a bunch of spent grain after the mash is over, (drain it of the wort) if you don’t want it to be too wet and stick it into the fridge for later, it should be good for a solid week or more. This way you can make the biscuits a few days later after your brew day when you are not so busy or too tired.
After a few tries using recipes from a Google I decided to make my recipe and combine my experience of bread baking, I list two recipes..
One of the things that I noticed from the Google recipes is that most of them used only 2 cups of spent-grain, that’s little grain. We all know we have “a lot!” more than 2 cups left after a brew.
Recipe #1 (the more messy recipe that takes more time, see Recipe #2 below if you want a quicker less messy solution)
4 cups of spent grain (no hops were used) – hops are poisonous to dogs
1 cup of – flour (you can combine either of flour types or just use one type)
1 cup of whole flour
2 cups of (beef or chicken) broth for flavor – heat it up in the microwave so that it is luke warm and add the yeast to it
1 egg (use the whole egg, calcium from shell is good if possible)
1/2 packet bread yeast (add to the broth, see above)
In a mixer: grain + flour + broth + egg.. mix it well, you can easily control how sticky it will be by adding chicken broth slowly or less of it, Add 1/2 packet of bread yeast with the broth (pre-heated), roll into a ball and let it sit under a towel for at least an 1 hour to raise..
Roll it out and use cookie cutters to take shape of your biscuits..
Preheat to 350F // bake for 30 ~ 45 minutes… Since you added yeast, these cookies will be nice and poofy.
After baking, lower temp to 200 ~ 220F and bake them for a few hours (2) to dry them out so that mold don’t take hold later (this largely depends on how thick your cookies are), thicker need longer drying time… We also use grocery paper bags for a week+ to remove any residual moisture, works well.
If your mix is sticky, just keep on adding flour until it’s not, use lots of flour on your work area so that the cookies won’t stick… If things seem too sticky, don’t give up, add more flour – no matter how crazy it looks! Also you have an option of using less broth, since that is what made them sticky.
I ended up with 3 sheets of cookies, use foil if you run out of cookie sheets :- ) pre-spray with cooking oil.. If you make your cookies thin, they don’t require as much extra drying time or next to none, don’t assume anything // check and look to make sure you are not overheating and burning them!
Recipe #2
This recipe does not use bread yeast, is simpler and faster to prepare/make and it should not be sticky at all, also you do everything in the mixing bowl, so there is little to clean up later. If you are short on time go with this one and dogs love peanut butter cookies as well!
Once you have your mix spread out on the cookie sheet, I usually cut it into strips. If you want to spend the extra time using fancy cookie shapes, go for it. Dogs don’t care :- )
4 cups of spent grain (ours was pretty dry and stored in the fridge for 2 days after brew day)
1.5 cups of flour (pick type, whole or all purpose), if you grain is more wet, you might need 2 cups, add more if so
2 eggs
1 cup of peanut butter
mix this all up, pre-heat your oven to 350 F and stick it in there for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 220F and leave it in there for 2 hours. Again, spray your pan so they won’t stick.
Here are pictures of our brew 3/22/2015 – after a one month rest ( keg in a fridge at 36F )… first 2 pics are from artificial light and last 2 from natural window light.
If you want the color darker – increase your Chocolate malt…
after about 5 weeks the beer will clear up completely and show its true Copper color along with achieving its overall profile:
This is a Copper Ale, 5 gallon all grain recipe. Double everything for a 10 gallon batch.
This one should end up at around 7% ABV, 15 IBU, 14 SRM..
We did a Copper Ale using a different recipe a few years back – use the Search window to find all variations, trying a new one this time…
weight (in lbs) type of grain:
11 lb // domestic 2-row
1 lb // Munich malt
0.45 lb // Victory malt
0.09 lb // Chocolate malt 350L
Hop Schedule:
Northern Brewer hops ( 6.0% Alpha Acid ) // 25 grams – add all of the hops as soon as boil starts, boil for 60 minutes. Add irish moss in the last 15 ~ 20 minutes of boil.
Wyeast American 1056 yeast should do nicely or use your house strain.
details of our 10 gallon brew on 2/28/2015..
total water used (mash and sparge) 15.5 gallons
we rounded the hops and added 2 ounces total ( or 1 ounce per the original 5gal recipie )
we added irish-moss 20 minutes prior to end of boil
we made a starter 24 hours before…
we start re-circulation 15 minutes before mash-out, to clear up the beer from particles
OG was 1.062
brew house efficiency ( coming up… )
video of circulation ( 20 min prior to mash-out ):
Final mash-out:
End-of-Boil, in this video I cool my wort and employ the re-circulation pump to remove cooling time as this help to remove the heat faster! Wort needs to be cooled to the recommended temp. range on the yeast packet – read the specs!
and the final stage, transfer beer to Fermentor – beer that is 10 gallons is to heavy to lift, you need to get a pump at this stage – unless you want to break your back. You can get away without a pump with 5 gallon batches, but not really with 10+
pitch yeast and wait…
clean up equipment, relax and drink beer, jump into a hot tub!
This recipe comes from a Brew Your Own magazine, January-February 2015 issue, page 40. We are planning to tweak it a little bit and change it around especially for the yeast and grains that we have access locally from our brew supply store. This is the all-grain version, they also had a extract only recipe.
Stay tuned!
Mash at 152F for 60 minutes – for a dry crisp Ale
follow with a 90 minute boil
We will update once we brew it and finalize our recipe and results :- )
5 gallon recipe.
5.2 lb Belgian Pilsner malt – substitute for what you can get
4 lb Wheat malt
1 lb light candi sugar – add in last 5 minutes of boil
Hops schedule:
1/4 oz or 7 grams of Nelson Sauvin hops at 40 minutes after boil starts
0.4 oz or 11 grams of Nelson Sauvin hops at 10 minutes from end of boil
Other ingredients:
2 to 4 ounces of dried hibiscus – last 5 minutes of boil / the more the more pinkish it will be
1/2 ounce coriander seed – end of boil (crush these before using with a roller of some kind or a beer bottle), let it soak for 5 minutes before starting to cool and chill the wort
Yeast:
We plan to use a 1214 Belgian Abbey yeast here, but original recipe calls for a WLP400 (Belgian Wit Ale) or a Fermentis Safbrew T-58 yeast…
tip: Never, ever pass judgment on a beer style based solely on your home-brewed experience/interpretation of it, ever!!!!!
If your batch didn’t turn out like you hoped, try comparing it to several commercial examples first, then aim to duplicate for which you like the best.
Unless the beer is made from a limited ingredient/batch source or expensive to acquire ingredients/limited authorized and/or controlled batches, Belgian beer is mostly pricy because of the name to pour reputation developed over time. This is not an attack at all on Belgian beers, if anything, you have to give them Belgian a Thumb up Bro and thanks for sharing your creations with the rest of the world!
Belgian beers are not just made by Monks, clearly we are the non-monks here and love to brew them! There isn’t much to it when you really think about it, there is a beer recipe, and you follow it and brew it and bamm, you have Belgian beer, that’s it!
Out of the dozen or so different Belgians we have brewed here so far, I would have to say that the only factor that stands out in making them a little bit more expensive to brew than other beers is the slightly more expensive grain bill due to many being a Double, Triple and even some Quads, and of average a longer time is required to age them, bare minimum of 3 months, averaging 6 to 12 months (varies by style), the recipes are not any harder to follow or brew than non-Belgian beers.
What makes a Belgian beer taste Belgian-y ?
It’s mostly the flavors put off by the Belgian yeast, fermented at higher temperatures. Belgian yeasts tend to produce distinct spicy to fruity flavors, in addition the use of adjuncts to lighten the body of the beer and increase the gravity are employed, like the use of Belgian Candy sugar.
So yes, when you pay $15 a glass at some fancy Bar, you are paying for the export recognition name, the History and bar markup prices, especially if the beer was brewed locally and is not imported from Belgium.
Fermentation took a solid week. ABV 8.9% // SRM 25
90 Minutes Mash at around 148F, followed by a 45 minutes at 158F, then mash-out at 170F // what we did different this time, used more grain and no Belgian Candi was used. Also, the 2 lb of Caramel 40L was split into 1 lb 40 and 60 Caramel each.
grain schedule (cost of grain bill was $47 from a brew store
Pale 2-row 27.50 lb
Torrified Wheat 1 lb
Chocolate Malt 350L 1.5 lb
Caramel 40 Love 1 lb
Caramel 60 Love 1 lb
hops schedule (whole hops cost was free, since we grew our own hops // pellet we buy it by the pound, this way cost averages down by ounce )
1.5 oz of whole hops Cascades, at start of boil
1 oz of pellet hops, Cascades at 30 minutes
1 oz of pellet hops, Cascades at 45 minutes + Irish Moss
yeast (we maintain our own, so this is almost free)
The yeast was the 1214 Belgian Abbey from 2014 brew which was sitting in the fridge all this time; we made a starter, and like a Boss! 2 liter starter, 48 hours.
December, 2014 Brew below:
Mash schedule:
90 minutes at 142F, than raise temps to 158F and hold for an additional 45 minutes, Mash out.
Over Ratio Grains Recipe:
80% pale 2-row
5% torrefied wheat
5% Belgian Chocolate mail
10% Caramel Malt (40L)
1lb of Belgian Dark Sugar Syrup
Hops schedule for a 5 gallon batch:
1 oz at start of boil – Willamette
1 oz at 30 minutes – East Kent
1 oz at end of boil – East Kent
for this recipe however we used Cascade hops for the whole thing, because we have a lot of them from the 2014 Harvest :- ) and also, these were the exact grains that we used, sometimes you have to substitute based on what is available where you live, you can also order exact grains and have them delivered, probably costs more money…
For the 10 gallon batch, we used:
24 pounds of Golden Promise – which is a pale 2-row malt
3 pounds of Crystal Malt, 40 Lov. (40L)
1.5 pounds of British Chocolate Malt (450-500 L)
1.50 pounds torrified wheat malt – it increases head retention and body / version of flaked wheat
1 LB of Dark Brown Candi Sugar
1 LB of Dark Belgian Candy Syrup
double the hot schedule for a 10 gallon batch ( see above )
We used 1214 Belgian Abbey yeast on this one!
12/21/2014 Brew OG 1.082
Videos:
mashing stage with re-circulation:
boil stage:
fermentation stage:
Ferment for 2 ~ 3 weeks at about 70F, read your yeast specs…
Yeast – many different type of Belgian yeasts exists, please do your research…
Achouffe — Wyeast 3522 (Belgian Ardennes) and White Labs WLP550 (Belgian Ale)
Chimay — Wyeast 1214 (Belgian Ale) and White Labs WLP500 (Trappist Ale)
Du Bocq (Corsendonk) — Wyeast 3538 (Leuven Pale Ale)
Duvel Moortgat — Wyeast1388 (Belgian Strong Ale) and White Labs WLP570 (Belgian Golden Ale)
Rochefort — Wyeast 1762 (Belgian Abbey II) and White Labs WLP540 (Belgian Abbey IV)
Orval — White Labs WLP510 (Bastogne Belgain Ale)
Unibroue — Wyeast 3864 (Cana-dian/Belgian)
Westmalle — Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity) and White Labs WLP530 (Abbey Ale)
A Counter Pressure bottle filler is a great device that is almost a need to have for any serious home brewer. You can make your own too, but it is recommended to just buy one – unless you have a proven design and access to good parts.
You will get clear, sediment free beer :- )
We really like the one valve design with a pressure relief valve on the left side, this allows for pressure to escape as you fill the bottle with beer/co2 – otherwise the beer flow would stop… it also allows for foam to escape once it is towards the top.
Tip: Many people recommend that you cool down the beer before filling as this eliminates foam problems, but we found that if you release all the built-up pressure in the Keg first, before connecting the co2 input for this process, it almost eliminates all the foam issues even when filling warm beer that has not been cooled at all – and you can totally skip this step.
In this video we show how the bigger bottle was filled… this was warm beer from the keg at room temperature.
As you can see from the pictures below, you can fill all kinds of bottle sizes and after a few bottles you will get a hang of it really quickly. We fill our bottles at about 11 psi… with a T splitter from the co2 bottle (meaning) that we split the gas line, and left side goes to feed the Keg and right side goes to feed the counter pressure device.
Purge all the air from the bottle with co2, squirt some gas as you insert the device into the bottle
adjust your pressure relief valve
once bottle is fully under pressure and the oxygen (air) is out
switch to beer side and let it rip
some foam is good, because you want to cap-on-foam // so this is a no big deal
We started with 12 gallons of total water, this is for the initial mash and then the followup sparge, we were shooting for 7 gallons, but might have been a little more, maybe 8…
OG was 1.060
FG 1.012
AVB 6.30 %
We used a 1/4 lb of hops – 3 ounces were pellet hops and 1 ounce was whole hops. We split each by 12 and added the weight together and added that amount every 5 minutes into the boil.
video of the recirculation:
video of the boil:
from mashtun, nice and black 🙂
the whole Cascade hops used in the brew.. from 2014 harvest…
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Sometimes the beer don’t need many different grains mixed in, you can get really good beer results from a basic set of 3 grains. The Pale Malt will be the base of your beer, it represents 90% of your grain bill, the other 2 are your specialty grains.
If you don’t want a Black IPA, simply remove the Carafa III and add more of the 60 Crystal.
Grains:
90% pale malt 5% 60°L Crystal 5% Weyermann Carafa III Special
Make sure you use the Special Carafa III and not the normal Carafa // otherwise you’ll end up with a hoppy Stout. Also, many brewers employ a trick where they add any dark grain in the last 5 minutes of boil or at end of boil, and let it sit for a few minutes, just enough to change the color, this way you don’t have to worry about any side effects of not hitting your goal.
once boil starts add hops every 5 minutes for 60 minutes
only Cascade hops will be used (single hop)
Use a good strain of yeast or your house yeast for this IPA Ale. We used Wyeast American Ale 1056.
On 6/4/2016 this year, we have brewed a 10 gallon version from last year, we scaled the grains and hops up by a factor of 2. Total water used was 15.5 gallons, and to be honest I think we ended up with 11 gallons total beer. However, this time we use canned Apricots, 5 cans total, they were already soft and super easy to create a puree (see video below) // also cost was much cheaper, 1 can costs $1, so $5 total. At the brew store, canned Apricots extracts were much more expensive $20 – so that’s something to consider…
Yeast, since we maintain our own yeasts, we use that, saves a lot of money and we have great results, Wyeast 1056 was used.
OG 1.056 // on day 3 we added 5 cans of apricots, this for sure raised the sugar levels, but we haven’t figured out exactly how to measure that, fruit calculators do exist, but I am not sure how accurate that really is.. Fermentation was for 2 weeks, below is a 2 week fermentation plot derived from the logger and their respective fit lines. You can see a nice spike when the fruit was added to the fermentor (blue lines are internal temps, orange external [outside the fermentor]).
FG 1.008
without factoring in the fruit added on day 3, final ABV 6.3% // which probably is closer to 8% 😉 when you do factor in the fruit.
2015 Brew – 5 Gallon All Grain Recipe – Apricot Ale
This recipe is fairly easy and the finished beer is delicious! The ABV % will range between 4 % ~ 6 % depending on how much fruit you use and what kind and the efficiency of your brew setup and the attenuation of your yeast.
FG – 1.012 // Kegging and Botteling Date: 6/21/2014
We only used 2 LB of Apricots and later 4 ounces of a natural Apricot flavoring – which will most likely push the ABV up a little bit too once it is finished aging. Normally recipe calls for 1 to 1.5 lbs of apricot fruit per each gallon of beer.
Grain:
9 lb American 2 row 2 lb Crystal 20L
Hops:
Set your timer and once a nice steady rolling boil has been achieved, then:
add 1 oz Cascade (at start of-boil )
add 1/2 Cascade or (1 OZ if you want more Hops) at last 15 minutes of Boil
– The resultant aroma is of medium strength and very distinct. It has a pleasant, flowery and spicy, citrus-like quality with a slight grapefruit characteristic. The hop is good for both flavor and aroma uses. It can also be used for bittering effectively, and can be used to make any ales.
Fruit:
2~3 lb of Canned Fruit Puree – add this to the Primary fermentation at day 3 of the fermentation. You can also add some apricot flavorings (you can buy those at the brew store), but add this at the kegging or bottling time.
Apricot Extract/Flavoring or making your own Apricot puree (lower cost)…
Do a test before bottling or kegging if you go with the extract: Take a dropper or pipette with mL measurements and blend a measured amount of the extract into a measured sample of beer, this will help you to find the mix ratio you like, and then simply scale up to figure out how much to add for the volume of beer that you have – most people add 4 ounces per 5 Gallon…
Sources: people I’ve met on G+ Community and various Beer Brewing Communities and Web sites.
Piwo = Beer.
In Polish the letters X, V, Q don’t exist and some additional letters are also present that are missing from English. For example VODKA is really spelled Wódka – the ó letter is more related to the U letter, because of how it is pronounced.
This article takes special meaning for me specifically since I am Polish, so am planning to invest extra time into figuring out all these recipes and how to best recreate them outside of Poland. I will write about a few things and then later I will post my own recipes after of course trying it out and confirming their result – and not just blind posting.
The „Grodziskie redivivus” Project – this is a famous mid-16th century Polish beer Recipe project, its maintained by a polish brewing community and here is the English version.
It goes into great details about every step to first document how it used to be done and how over time brewing has changed; and how it is done today and why. Some key differences to take note:
Artesian sources (especially the water)
low temp fermentation
a lot of older breweries and even ones that exist today open-ferment all their beers (this allows for a no stress/no pressure environment that brings out a unique and natural flower bouquet of flavors, tastes and is even apparent in the final color of the beer).
top and bottom fermenting yeasts are mixed together for a combination
Regional hops are used
some recipes use only single malt, like the smoked oak wheat malt and most breweries malt and smoke their own grains using their traditional methods
these beers are typically carbonated to 3.5 volume – so make sure to use strong bottles, don’t reuse any weak bottles that don’t qualify – the bottles might crack
Here is some links to some Polish brewing forums and Breweries:
Here is an active brewery that still employs a lot of the traditional ways of brewing beer, the videos are in Polish, but they do have an English version of their website:
